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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Polynomial and Rational Function Review Day

Review days are a continual
dilemma for me. After each unit is finished and before each test day, I
schedule a Review/Catch Up Day. I'm not sold on this format,
but I'm not opposed to it either. Due to the fact that we live in Oklahoma, I definitely
have to have a few built-in catch up days since we close our schools and colleges at the
slightest sign of snow/"cold" weather.

I've been using these built-in catch up days for review,
which seems natural enough. The downside is that I often have very low
attendance on these days. So, today I tried something new. I offered
something that nearly every one of my students will come to class for: extra
credit.

You would think I would have had this revelation a while ago...alas.

Math Mama wrote about a game of "Risk Your Beginning Algebra Skills." I really
liked the idea of the students having to wager a certain amount for each given question: they
have to be honest with themselves and decide how well they think they know
something before seeing the answer. So, I adapted Math Mama's idea and made a game of "Polynomial and Rational Function Jeopardy." Before I showed them the answer
slide, I would ask which students felt confident about their answer and then
I had one of these students share with the class. They were usually right
on the money.

I chose to do this in a slideshow format as opposed to a worksheet format because I know my
students well enough to know that half of them would be working ahead and hence
not contributing to the overall discussion (all my students are concurrent high school juniors and seniors). Even if the overall discussion is not always where I would like it to be, some discussion still beats no discussion.

Overall, I think this review day was a success. Students participated and hopefully got a good sense of what they needed to study for the upcoming test.